our conversation
has a perfectly important and definite meaning I permit myself to
open before you the secret, but for me, the visible springs which
caused the so-called offence, and present disposition of mamma."

"It would be better to avoid this and proceed to the point
directly," said Darvid, throwing his eyeglasses on his nose with
a nervous movement.

"No, father, permit me to take a few minutes of time, I beg you.
This is necessary. Every man has in himself a soul, so-called,
personal to him, unlike others."

She halted for a moment, shrugged her shoulders:

"For that matter, am I sure of this? The soul may be a painted
pot also. But it is the usual name given to our various feelings
and inclinations. So pour le commodite de la conversation, I
shall use this word." She smiled and continued: "There are
various souls, some as hard as steel, others soft as wax, some
inaccessible to sentiment, others sentimental. Mamma's soul is
soft and sentimental. Tenderness, care, confidence are as needful
to her as air is to breathing. Do I know, for that matter, the
various ingredients which make up the so-called love, attachment,
etc. You, father, have a soul of steel and immensely great
business power--we were children--Cara had barely begun to speak
then. Well, a moment came--do I know when? I do not
know--but--finally that happened which must have happened more
than once to you in your very numerous, remote, and prolonged
journeys. Do I not speak the truth?"

In the high plates of her dark ruff her face was in a blush, but
she smiled a little, and with strangely flashing eyes looked
directly into the face of her father.

"For," added she, "one would need to have mental rheumatism to
believe that you loved only mamma all the time, and even that you
loved her in general--mamma, of course, did not think that you
did."

"Irene!" cried Darvid.

But she did not permit interruption.

"Allow me, I beg you, to say that I am not criticising. I am not
in any sense. There is not a shade of criticism in what I say. I
only state and expose facts and causes. That is all. This is
requisite. Without this it would be impossible to understand
mamma's request and mine which I will tell you quickly. And now I
return to the question of the individual soul. That is a thing of
capital importance. Offences, so-called, rise from so-called mean
souls, or from noble ones. Of the first I know little, but if an
offence comes from a noble